OTTAWA — Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal will travel to Canada next week for talks with Trade Minister Mary Ng, as Ottawa seeks progress on an interim trade agreement that would lead to a long-discussed comprehensive economic pact.

Goyal’s trip will include stops in Ottawa and Toronto, according to a senior Canadian government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit has yet to be announced. In addition to Ng, he is set to meet with business leaders on the three-day trip.

India was Canada’s ninth-largest export market last year, while Canada ranked 32nd for India. Bilateral goods trade between the two countries totalled $13.6 billion, up from $9 billion in 2021, according to Statistics Canada data. But both countries have signalled they see opportunities to grow those figures, with Canadian officials keen to make progress on trade talks this spring.

Ng and Goyal formally relaunched talks on a bilateral economic agreement at the last ministerial dialogue on trade and investment in New Delhi in March 2022. They also agreed to consider an “early-progress” deal that would act as a transitional step to a broader treaty. Since then, the two countries’ officials have conducted seven rounds between departmental negotiators, with the most recent in Ottawa in early April, said Jason Kung, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada. 

Canada’s goal is to reach an early-progress agreement this year, and bilateral engagements in May will be “quite critical to those efforts,” a second senior government official told The Logic in early April.

The coming weeks are important because officials in Ottawa expect New Delhi’s attention to shift to other international and domestic issues later in the year. India currently holds the G20 presidency, and the bloc’s ministerial meetings will begin to pick up next month, culminating in the leaders’ summit in New Delhi in September. The BJP government will also be gearing up for national elections in spring 2024. 

From Ottawa’s perspective, Goyal’s visit is an opportunity to advance negotiations on the early-progress agreement. “It does require some ministerial engagement to refocus our teams,” said the second senior government official. The negotiators “have been at it for quite a while and sometimes you need a fresh voice to get through some issues that have been building.” 

There’s scope for “quite an ambitious” early-progress agreement, said the official. While the source would not disclose what sectors or issues are under negotiation, they did note that investment has been part of the discussions.

Goyal’s visit “comes at an important time,” Ng said in a statement, adding that “Canada and India have a shared interest in making progress on our shared economic priorities and working together on the future of the Indo-Canadian relationship.”

The Indian high commission in Ottawa did not respond to The Logic’s request for comment.

Goyal’s visit is a sign of his commitment to reaching a deal, said Goldy Hyder, CEO of the Business Council of Canada, a lobby group representing chief executives of some of the country’s largest firms. The council will host a roundtable for Goyal with CEOs from Canadian and Indian companies during the trip.

Canada benefits from the stability its current portfolio of trade deals offers, but “it’s missing India,” he said, citing opportunities in renewable energy, infrastructure and labour mobility. 

An early-progress agreement should be achievable, according to Hyder, who is calling for a deal by the end of this year. “It’s critically important, from a business perspective, to offer that predictability [and] stability around tariffs, dispute mechanisms and so forth.” He said a bilateral trade deal with India would also contribute to Ottawa’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, released in November, which seeks to boost economic and diplomatic ties with the region.

The then-Conservative government first launched free-trade talks with India in November 2010, but the effort petered out in August 2017 following 10 rounds. Former federal officials have noted that New Delhi’s public commitment to reaching a deal doesn’t always transfer to its bureaucrats in closed-door negotiating rooms. 

The early-progress agreement is a new addition to the process this time around. In April 2022, New Delhi signed a similar deal with Canberra that reduced tariffs on Australian coal, wine and other major exports. Canada wants its interim pact to go “considerably further” than that one, Cameron MacKay, high commissioner to India, told The Logic last year. 

Vancouver-based Teck Resources’s metallurgical coal business, Toronto-headquartered insurance giant Fairfax Financial and Regina-based pulse processor AGT Food and Ingredients have all found significant markets in India. Canadian institutional investors have bought up billions of dollars of roads, renewable power projects and other infrastructure on the subcontinent. Pension funds have asked Ottawa to push New Delhi on an investor-protection agreement, which has been in the works for even longer than a trade deal. 

Hyder wants Canada to be “targeted in our entree” to the subcontinent. “We should take a more sectoral approach as opposed to an all-you-can-eat buffet,” he said. “The market of India is just enormous.” 

Update: This story has been updated with comment from Trade Minister Mary Ng.